Sydney Sweeney is back in the horror business. The Immaculatestar is circling a new adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe‘s classic short story, The Masque of the Red Death. Deadline reports that the film is set to be produced by A24.

The film is said to be a “wildly revisionist and darkly comedic” reimagining of the classic Poe tale; all other plot details are being kept under wraps. It will be written and directed by Charlie Polinger, a playwright whose feature debut, The Plague, stars Joel Edgerton and is currently in post-production; Polinger will also executive produce the film with frequent collaborator Lucy McKendrick. Sweeney is one of the hottest tickets in Hollywood at the moment; current projects on her plate include the Paul Feig psychological thriller The Housemaid, with Amanda Seyfried; Echo Valley, a thriller with Julianne Moore; a biopic of pioneering women’s boxer Christy Martin; and a remake of the 1960s sci-fi camp classic Barbarella. She is also set to film the much-delayed third season of HBO‘s controversial hit Euphoria this winter.

What is ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ About?

First published in 1842, Poe‘s story centers around Prince Prospero, an aristocrat who throws a masked ball for his fellow nobles even as a deadly plague, the Red Death, rages outside his fortress’ walls. The party turns out to have an uninvited guest – one that ensures that nobody will be going home. Although the story is extremely short, it has been adapted for the screen a number of times, starting with the 1919 silent adaptation The Plague of Berlin. Most famous is the 1964 adaptation directed by Roger Corman, which added a great deal to the story to make it feature-length, including elements from another Poe story, Hop-Frog. It starred Vincent Price, a mainstay in Corman‘s Poe adaptations, as Prospero, a noble who leads a Satanic cult and abducts local villagers to die for his amusement. Naturally, of course, he gets his comeuppance in the form of the Red Death. Corman also produced a 1989 remake of the film, starring Adrian Paul and Patrick Macnee.

The Masque of the Red Death was recently loosely adapted in Mike Flanagan‘s The Fall of the House of Usher miniseries; the series’ second episode features the Usher family’s youngest son, Prospero, throwing a party in a condemned building. However, the appearance of a masked figure heralds doom for the revelers, as the sprinkler system rains down corrosive chemicals upon them. The resulting massacre is gruesome even by Poe‘s standards.

The Masque of the Red Death will film later this year; no release date has yet been announced.

via Collider